Expat soldiers threaten to return medals over frozen pension fiasco

A number of expat veterans have joined the argument over frozen pensions, threatening to actually return the medals they earned while serving England if the pensions remain frozen.

A petition signed by over 100 expat soldiers is being compiled, with the veterans stating they feel betrayed by the country they fought to protect.

John Markham, a spokesman for the International Consortium of British Pensioners, said: “After 50 years of injustice it has come to the stage where men and women who fought for this country feel so abandoned that they would renounce their hard won war medals. These brave veterans deserve better than to be robbed of their glory as well as the pensions they paid for all their working lives. We trust the government will not let it come to that and will see justice is done before it is too late.”

Mr Markham plans to present the petition to Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street. He will be joined by a number of expat veterans, one of whom, Bernard Jackson currently living in Canada, expressed his outrage to the Telegraph: “How disgraceful that at the age of 87 I am still fighting a battle; this one is to get my UK pension unfrozen. I worked for 50 years in the UK, and landed in Normandy on D-Day. The politicians have no more excuses. If they care about fairness the government will listen to us today and end this injustice once and for all.”

Thousands of elderly British expats are currently stuck with pensions that have remained frozen at very old rates. Avoid this yourself by investigating alternative expat pension options such as QROPS and QNUPS. Learn more in our Pensions and Retirement Planning section.